Not right to link every death with Vyapam, says Chouhan

Bhopal, July 6 (IANS) It is not at all right to link every death with Vyapam, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Monday, the day a female trainee police sub-inspector committed suicide.

Chouhan said every death is sad, but it is not fair to link every death with Vyapam.

The chief minister spoke after Anamika Kushwaha, a trainee at the Jawaharlal Nehru Training Centre at Sagar, jumped to her death in a nearby pond early Monday.

Chouhan said Anamika’s death was not linked to the raging Vyapam scam.

The admission and recruitment racket in the Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (Vyapam) or the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board apparently involves politicians, officials and businessmen.

More than 40 people associated with the scam have died since 2013 – either in mysterious circumstances or have committed suicides.

Just a day before Anamika killed herself, Arun Sharma, the dean of a medical college in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh who was connected with the scam probe, was found dead in a hotel room near the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.

Sharma, 64, was assisting the team probing the recruitment scam by providing documents on fake medical entrance examinees in the state-run college, police said.

Madhya Pradesh Minister Narottam Mishra said that as far as Arun Sharma’s death is concerned, “it is not linked to Vyapam”.

The most high-profile death in the case has been of Shailesh Yadav, son of Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. Shailesh, 50, was found dead at his father’s residence in Lucknow on March 25.

There are conflicting number of deaths related to Vyapam scam. Congress puts these deaths at 48, while the Special Investigation Team’s figure is 33.